Further Reading

In a letter to Google’s top executives, Common Cause et al wrote that “Over the last year, hundreds of thousands of Americans have signed petitions asking Google to end its ALEC membership because of their concerns about the harmful role ALEC has played in our democratic process… The public knows that the ALEC operation—which brings state legislators and corporate lobbyists behind closed doors to discuss proposed legislation and share lavish dinners—threatens our democracy. The public is asking Google to stop participating in this scheme.”

Common Cause also complained about ALEC’s nonprofit status to the IRS in 2012, saying the group “massively underreports” lobbying it does on behalf of corporate members.

Microsoft recently ended its affiliation with the group “due to concerns over ALEC’s extreme views; that extreme agenda includes denying climate change, not funding public services, curtailing labor rights and opposing net neutrality,” the letter said.

When contacted by Ars, a Google spokesperson replied, “we aren't going to be commenting on this letter.”

Google’s affiliation with ALEC was reported by the Daily Beast in August 2013. The article detailed “ALEC’s communications and technology task force, which includes representatives from Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Yahoo,” saying Google and Facebook had not previously been known to be members. We contacted Facebook and Yahoo for comment today but haven’t gotten a response yet.

“ALEC member companies pay annual dues and can sit on task forces where they can propose, debate, and vote on model bills with state legislators. Once approved by ALEC, the model legislation is introduced and often passed in statehouses across the country,” the Daily Beast wrote.

Common Cause has also previously called on Facebook to end its membership.

"In addition to paying to be a member of ALEC ($12,000 - $25,000 per year), Google and Facebook both pay to be a member of ALEC’s Communications and Technology Task Force ($5,000 per year)," Common Cause told Ars. "If they sponsor a workshop, training, or party during ALEC’s conferences, that is an additional amount (somewhere around $40,000 per event), plus conference fees to send their lobbyists/executives to ALEC conferences, plus any additional funding they give to ALEC or ALEC scholarship accounts. All of this funding is considered charitable contributions to a 501(c)(3). Google may write it off as a tax write-off."

It’s not clear why Google joined ALEC.

“[Google] might be concerned about right-of-way and video franchising related to Google Fiber, or maybe they want to work on state tax issues,” Common Cause Program Director Todd O’Boyle speculated. The communications and technology task force Google is part of covers net neutrality, state telecom deregulation, and municipal broadband, he said.

“The point is whatever they are lobbying on it should be done out in the open, and not behind a corporate front group,” O’Boyle told Ars. “ALEC operates largely in secret, so it’s a vehicle for undisclosed corporate influence peddling. Many firms have turned to ALEC to influence legislators behind the scenes, but for such a technologically advanced company, Google is definitely behind the curve. Google should follow Microsoft’s lead and dump ALEC.”

ALEC did not answer our question about what issues it's working on with Google, but provided this statement: "The American Legislative Exchange Council is a membership organization dedicated to bringing together state policymakers, members of the business community and policy experts to discuss and share ideas from a limited government, free markets and federalism perspective."

They continued, "The product of our members’ thoughtful and careful ideas-sharing process is model policy, which is published on our website for all to see and access. As a 501(c)3 nonprofit educational organization, ALEC does not advocate nor lobby for legislation. The scare tactics the signers of this letter—who are activist groups—employ to force people and companies to bend to their ideological will are proof they would rather intimidate than educate. Many of the groups on this letter are funded by the same donors to do the same thing: frighten, silence and ultimately destroy ideas that do not mirror their own. ALEC is a target of activist groups specifically because of the organization’s effectiveness at bringing together legislators and members of the private sector to share ideas. ALEC will continue to bring together people and organizations to build real solutions to real issues facing our communities and states."

Promoted Comments

When contacted by Ars, a Google spokesperson replied, “we aren't going to be commenting on this letter.”

I see this as a time-share. Google does not know who else uses their senators and representatives when they are away, but it's cheaper to pay the time-share fee and use those senators and representatives for a few weeks each year than it would be to buy them outright. The association pays to have the senators and representatives cleaned and maintained in between each use.

The American Legislative Exchange Council is a membership organization dedicated to bringing together state policymakers, members of the business community and policy experts to discuss and share ideas from a limited government, free markets and federalism perspective.

We write fucked up laws, so your elected representatives don't have to!

If you'd like a little bit of comedy along with your "everything is terrible, our government has long not been ours" news of today, ALEC also happens to want to make those damnable private solar panel homeowners who place excess energy back onto the grid to pay for the privilege of using public infrastructure, on which they receive power otherwise, to deliver it the other way: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/d ... ean-energy

And before you ask, yes, they want to charge enough to make delivering any energy back at all a severely expensive proposition.

I mean, I'm going to point out that the people who work for our energy companies - the ones responsible for buying and selling energy and on the hook for deciding whether to ramp up or ramp down generation to meet demand (keeping in mind cost-optimal generation rates for their given facilities) - think private solar and wind generation is a godsend because it makes their lives easier.

When contacted by Ars, a Google spokesperson replied, “we aren't going to be commenting on this letter.”

I see this as a time-share. Google does not know who else uses their senators and representatives when they are away, but it's cheaper to pay the time-share fee and use those senators and representatives for a few weeks each year than it would be to buy them outright. The association pays to have the senators and representatives cleaned and maintained in between each use.

I always figured we'd at least have until the founders left Google before the company turned into a shell of its former self, at least in terms of 'don't be evil.' However I'm starting to wonder if a turn for the worse could happen much sooner.

The American Legislative Exchange Council is a membership organization dedicated to bringing together state policymakers, members of the business community and policy experts to discuss and share ideas from a limited government, free markets and federalism perspective.

We write fucked up laws, so your elected representatives don't have to!

If you'd like a little bit of comedy along with your "everything is terrible, our government has long not been ours" news of today, ALEC also happens to want to make those damnable private solar panel homeowners who place excess energy back onto the grid to pay for the privilege of using public infrastructure, on which they receive power otherwise, to deliver it the other way: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/d ... ean-energy

And before you ask, yes, they want to charge enough to make delivering any energy back at all a severely expensive proposition.

I mean, I'm going to point out that the people who work for our energy companies - the ones responsible for buying and selling energy and on the hook for deciding whether to ramp up or ramp down generation to meet demand (keeping in mind cost-optimal generation rates for their given facilities) - think private solar and wind generation is a godsend because it makes their lives easier.

I always figured we'd at least have until the founders left Google before the company turned into a shell of its former self, at least in terms of 'don't be evil.' However I'm starting to wonder if a turn for the worse could happen much sooner.

Yeah, next thing you know they'll be arguing over what type of bed to put into their party jet or something. Oh, wait...

If you'd like a little bit of comedy along with your "everything is terrible, our government has long not been ours" news of today, ALEC also happens to want to make those damnable private solar panel homeowners who place excess energy back onto the grid to pay for the privilege of using public infrastructure, on which they receive power otherwise, to deliver it the other way: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/d ... ean-energy

And before you ask, yes, they want to charge enough to make delivering any energy back at all a severely expensive proposition.

I mean, I'm going to point out that the people who work for our energy companies - the ones responsible for buying and selling energy and on the hook for deciding whether to ramp up or ramp down generation to meet demand (keeping in mind cost-optimal generation rates for their given facilities) - think private solar and wind generation is a godsend because it makes their lives easier.

So they want to charge people for giving the grid free energy. Someone's been taking too many notes on ISP practices...

In France, we have a wireless carrier which offers a plan with unlimited YouTube data (the only website to get this special treatment). I think it tells a lot about how deeply Google cares about network neutrality.

As much as it pains me to say, but being part of this group is the rational thing for Google to do. ALEC is where legislation gets written. Getting your lobbyists into the game when the bill is being debated is being about 3 steps late. $30k a year to influence legislation while it is being written is a steal. And even if they can't influence it, it's $30k a year to find out months, if not years, ahead of time what bills are going to be proposed that you need to act on. Again, a steal.

Now, is ALEC the quintessential problem in government right now? It sure is. Does that $30k fund them, and does Google's presence help ALEC's propaganda - I mean, PR efforts? It sure does. That still doesn't change the fact that being part of ALEC is the rational move for Google.

Then again, I'm curious what the rational was behind Microsoft dropping out. Was it really just "ALEC is everything that's wrong with US politics", or did they just not get enough bang for the buck? Or was it something else?

If you'd like a little bit of comedy along with your "everything is terrible, our government has long not been ours" news of today, ALEC also happens to want to make those damnable private solar panel homeowners who place excess energy back onto the grid to pay for the privilege of using public infrastructure, on which they receive power otherwise, to deliver it the other way: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/d ... ean-energy

And before you ask, yes, they want to charge enough to make delivering any energy back at all a severely expensive proposition.

I mean, I'm going to point out that the people who work for our energy companies - the ones responsible for buying and selling energy and on the hook for deciding whether to ramp up or ramp down generation to meet demand (keeping in mind cost-optimal generation rates for their given facilities) - think private solar and wind generation is a godsend because it makes their lives easier.

So they want to charge people for giving the grid free energy. Someone's been taking too many notes on ISP practices...

Well, I could see a fee for grid maintenance... those guys driving bucket trucks around 24/7 fixing stuff within an hour probably don't want to work for free...

Yes, it's called paying taxes and paying for the energy you consume. Public utilities like PGE like to talk like they're poor little corporations fighting against all kinds of competition, when they in fact are a PUBLIC UTILITY (caps for emphasis, lest PGE execs don't hear it over the noise from their exploding gas lines), with all sorts of monopoly perks flowing from it.

If you'd like a little bit of comedy along with your "everything is terrible, our government has long not been ours" news of today, ALEC also happens to want to make those damnable private solar panel homeowners who place excess energy back onto the grid to pay for the privilege of using public infrastructure, on which they receive power otherwise, to deliver it the other way: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/d ... ean-energyAnd before you ask, yes, they want to charge enough to make delivering any energy back at all a severely expensive proposition.I mean, I'm going to point out that the people who work for our energy companies - the ones responsible for buying and selling energy and on the hook for deciding whether to ramp up or ramp down generation to meet demand (keeping in mind cost-optimal generation rates for their given facilities) - think private solar and wind generation is a godsend because it makes their lives easier.

Without whipping out credentials, this is something I happen to know a lot about.

First, the corporate people ALEC is working on behalf of here are the electric generators, transmitters, and distributors (for simplification, I'll call them the 'utilities"). The utilities want solar generation to die a horrible death, unless it is they who are charging huge capital budgets back to the ratepayers for the privilege of building the plants. Net-metering (or net energy metering) isn't something any electric utility isn't going to allow to happen without a huge battle. The most expensive (and thus the most profitable) power is the peak load power, supplied by "peaker plants" which are designed to be quickly turned on to follow the load demand, and then quickly shut off after they are finished being needed (mostly simple cycle turbine units). This power is usually generated from noon to 6 pm.

Hmm, what else can be generated from noon to 6 pm? Right, the solar panels sitting on your home, generating electricity you don't need since you are at work. So you should be able to sell that back to the electric company, and help them alleviate the electric load that they are desperate to make and have to charge so much to generate? You're so generous, you conscientious little person, but you can take your electrons and shove them where the sun don't shine (pun intended)!

The grid is really not designed to take the power from your house and help the people around you, and to re-engineer the grid to be "smarter" and more able to sustain itself is something your utility wants to charge you a lot of money to develop...without your help from your solar panels. Plus the infrastructure rates are based on how much electricity you use, and not based on sharing the maintenance and operations equally among users. Which is why if you get off the grid, they stop getting money to maintain the wires and transformers from you.

Instead of working on a solution that benefits the utility and the consumer, they would rather make it too expensive for you to receive money for trying to do your part to eliminate the most expensive and least efficient source of power (simple cycle power generation is much less efficient than the baseload combined cycle plants) and leave that to them. Especially the profits they can extract from building the new power plants; which is the real way electric utilities make their money.

Like Google, they don't want to be caught writing laws to directly benefit their business, so they pay ALEC to do it for them.

If you'd like a little bit of comedy along with your "everything is terrible, our government has long not been ours" news of today, ALEC also happens to want to make those damnable private solar panel homeowners who place excess energy back onto the grid to pay for the privilege of using public infrastructure, on which they receive power otherwise, to deliver it the other way: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/d ... ean-energyAnd before you ask, yes, they want to charge enough to make delivering any energy back at all a severely expensive proposition.I mean, I'm going to point out that the people who work for our energy companies - the ones responsible for buying and selling energy and on the hook for deciding whether to ramp up or ramp down generation to meet demand (keeping in mind cost-optimal generation rates for their given facilities) - think private solar and wind generation is a godsend because it makes their lives easier.

Without whipping out credentials, this is something I happen to know a lot about.

First, the corporate people ALEC is working on behalf of here are the electric generators, transmitters, and distributors (for simplification, I'll call them the 'utilities"). The utilities want solar generation to die a horrible death, unless it is they who are charging huge capital budgets back to the ratepayers for the privilege of building the plants. Net-metering (or net energy metering) isn't something any electric utility isn't going to allow to happen without a huge battle. The most expensive (and thus the most profitable) power is the peak load power, supplied by "peaker plants" which are designed to be quickly turned on to follow the load demand, and then quickly shut off after they are finished being needed (mostly simple cycle turbine units). This power is usually generated from noon to 6 pm.

Hmm, what else can be generated from noon to 6 pm? Right, the solar panels sitting on your home, generating electricity you don't need since you are at work. So you should be able to sell that back to the electric company, and help them alleviate the electric load that they are desperate to make and have to charge so much to generate? You're so generous, you conscientious little person, but you can take your electrons and shove them where the sun don't shine (pun intended)!

The grid is really not designed to take the power from your house and help the people around you, and to re-engineer the grid to be "smarter" and more able to sustain itself is something your utility wants to charge you a lot of money to develop...without your help from your solar panels. Plus the infrastructure rates are based on how much electricity you use, and not based on sharing the maintenance and operations equally among users. Which is why if you get off the grid, they stop getting money to maintain the wires and transformers from you.

Instead of working on a solution that benefits the utility and the consumer, they would rather make it too expensive for you to receive money for trying to do your part to eliminate the most expensive and least efficient source of power (simple cycle power generation is much less efficient than the baseload combined cycle plants) and leave that to them. Especially the profits they can extract from building the new power plants; which is the real way electric utilities make their money.

Like Google, they don't want to be caught writing laws to directly benefit their business, so they pay ALEC to do it for them.

[/rant]

I normally don't do this, but.... quoted for truth. This is exactly what is happening. PGE is a poster child for every single behavior you described. Fortunately, the CA regulator isn't letting them get away with it.... yet. I'm sure this battle is not over, which is why it's important to let people know it is taking place.

As much as it pains me to say, but being part of this group is the rational thing for Google to do. ALEC is where legislation gets written. Getting your lobbyists into the game when the bill is being debated is being about 3 steps late. $30k a year to influence legislation while it is being written is a steal. And even if they can't influence it, it's $30k a year to find out months, if not years, ahead of time what bills are going to be proposed that you need to act on. Again, a steal.

Now, is ALEC the quintessential problem in government right now? It sure is. Does that $30k fund them, and does Google's presence help ALEC's propaganda - I mean, PR efforts? It sure does. That still doesn't change the fact that being part of ALEC is the rational move for Google.

Then again, I'm curious what the rational was behind Microsoft dropping out. Was it really just "ALEC is everything that's wrong with US politics", or did they just not get enough bang for the buck? Or was it something else?

I disagree that a company like Google needs to associate with ultra right wingers in order to promote their interests.

It sounds like this group does a couple of good things, and lots of evil. My understanding is that Microsoft got in due to a specific interest they were trying to promote, and got out because of all the reprehensible, draconian policies they later determined were also getting supported. Microsoft wants no part of the anti abortion movement, pro "stand your ground," and lots of the other social policies promoted by ALEC, which is ultra conservative while companies like Microsoft are not.

Well, unless Bing and Yahoo join in, any boycott by Google is just going to drive business from their search engine to another product.

Voted you down because you obviously don't know how the net neutrality protest works. Nothing's being slowed down. However pop-ups will show how annoying it would be if it was and why it's important to keep large businesses from being able to buy special privileged speeds over smaller, less fiscally blessed businesses.

A lot of large sites are involved in the protest, but Google isn't among them.

[quote="RFTI normally don't do this, but.... quoted for truth. This is exactly what is happening. PGE is a poster child for every single behavior you described. Fortunately, the CA regulator isn't letting them get away with it.... yet. I'm sure this battle is not over, which is why it's important to let people know it is taking place.[/quote]

Similiarily...In Austin Tx, the Water utility has drought restrictions and is constantly asking people to conserve water....then came out with the following..

We are not making enough money because people are conserving too much water so we are going to have to raise rates.....and we are still in a drought and not conserving enough water, so we are also going to implement a drought fee as well to force people to conserve more water.

If you'd like a little bit of comedy along with your "everything is terrible, our government has long not been ours" news of today, ALEC also happens to want to make those damnable private solar panel homeowners who place excess energy back onto the grid to pay for the privilege of using public infrastructure, on which they receive power otherwise, to deliver it the other way: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/d ... ean-energy

And before you ask, yes, they want to charge enough to make delivering any energy back at all a severely expensive proposition.

I mean, I'm going to point out that the people who work for our energy companies - the ones responsible for buying and selling energy and on the hook for deciding whether to ramp up or ramp down generation to meet demand (keeping in mind cost-optimal generation rates for their given facilities) - think private solar and wind generation is a godsend because it makes their lives easier.

So they want to charge people for giving the grid free energy. Someone's been taking too many notes on ISP practices...

Well, I could see a fee for grid maintenance... those guys driving bucket trucks around 24/7 fixing stuff within an hour probably don't want to work for free...

No, but they're already paid for it. The grid already exists. In order to qualify for energy buyback, you have to be on the grid in the first place. Those maintenance fees are already paid for by our taxes and the money we pay for energy already.

I always figured we'd at least have until the founders left Google before the company turned into a shell of its former self, at least in terms of 'don't be evil.' However I'm starting to wonder if a turn for the worse could happen much sooner.

If I'm not mistaken, the real force behind Google's evil is Eric Schmidt. Back in the day, Sergey Brin and Larry Page kept him in check, but now those two don't seem to be running the show.

I'd imagine that tiered internet would benefit Google by raising the operating costs of its competitors. So, it'd be harder to create and sustain a competitor to YouTube, Google Drive, even Google itself than it is now.

Granted, that's me at my most cynical and conspiratorial. Google is established, so its interests are in maintaining what its got. Like Microsoft during the 90's or major ISPs now, its easier and more desirable to stifle competition than it is to actively compete.

There's nothing wrong with the outsourcing of legislation drafting. Most legislators aren't terribly smart. Their job is get elected, not write legislation. Even if a legislator claims to have written a bill, it was probably ghost written by young lawyers or other experts hired by the legislator.

There are tons of state statutes that were written by outside groups, like the Uniform Commercial Code, the Uniform Partnership Act, the Model Administrative Procedure Act, and so on. This is good, as it encourages thoughtful drafting and legal consistency throughout the country.

Now you lost me. The UCC is not in the same league as the laws ghost written by ALEC. You're essentially comparing Disney's the Lion King to the documentary Blackfish. "But they're both films about animals, right?" Logic fail.

It's not opposed to democracy because the legislators still vote on the bills. It would be strange to expect every single person who votes on bills to have had a hand in writing every single thing they vote on.

It's the facade that organizations don't have the cajones to openly endorse/write the bills and submit them to legislatures. They pay someone else to dirty their hands for them.

There's nothing wrong with the outsourcing of legislation drafting. Most legislators aren't terribly smart. Their job is get elected, not write legislation. Even if a legislator claims to have written a bill, it was probably ghost written by young lawyers or other experts hired by the legislator. There are tons of state statutes that were written by outside groups, like the Uniform Commercial Code, the Uniform Partnership Act, the Model Administrative Procedure Act, and so on. This is good, as it encourages thoughtful drafting and legal consistency throughout the country. It's not opposed to democracy because the legislators still vote on the bills. It would be strange to expect every single person who votes on bills to have had a hand in writing every single thing they vote on.

No. To be really clear: NO. The reason representatives exist is because it can't be everyone's job to do all the research necessary to create a good bill, or do the research necessary to cast an informed vote on a bill. That is the sole justification for their existence. If they can't do that, we have no need for them.

The reason it is the complete opposite of democracy is that it places the full power of legislation into the hands of the people who are completely unaccountable for their actions.

Democracy is not just voting. Democracy requires legitimacy for the representatives, informed voting by the voters and representatives, and an open and transparent process. ALEC kills off every aspect of what makes a democracy an actual democracy, and not just a kleptocracy with some democratic furnishings.

There's nothing wrong with the outsourcing of legislation drafting. Most legislators aren't terribly smart. Their job is get elected, not write legislation. Even if a legislator claims to have written a bill, it was probably ghost written by young lawyers or other experts hired by the legislator. There are tons of state statutes that were written by outside groups, like the Uniform Commercial Code, the Uniform Partnership Act, the Model Administrative Procedure Act, and so on. This is good, as it encourages thoughtful drafting and legal consistency throughout the country. It's not opposed to democracy because the legislators still vote on the bills. It would be strange to expect every single person who votes on bills to have had a hand in writing every single thing they vote on.

No. To be really clear: NO. The reason representatives exist is because it can't be everyone's job to do all the research necessary to create a good bill, or do the research necessary to cast an informed vote on a bill. That is the sole justification for their existence. If they can't do that, we have no need for them.

The reason it is the complete opposite of democracy is that it places the full power of legislation into the hands of the people who are completely unaccountable for their actions.

Democracy is not just voting. Democracy requires legitimacy for the representatives, informed voting by the voters and representatives, and an open and transparent process. ALEC kills off every aspect of what makes a democracy an actual democracy, and not just a kleptocracy with some democratic furnishings.

Just more proof that google is nothing more than a group of corporate assholes. Of course that is what brin and his fellow corporate whores have been for quite a while. Funny how easy it was for them to forget their beginnings, you know before they started sucking the corporate dog in the valley back in the day. Another monopoly emerges and Americans allow it.